Cartographic Heritage (or Cartoheritage) is the overlapping of mainstream Cartography (including the study of its history and its social, geopolitical and cultural impacts) with Curtural Heritage, the culture of the past as perceived and experienced in present.

Cartographic Heritage is the Cartography of the Past as perceived and experienced in Present

Major driving forces of Cartoheritage are:

the strong gaining factor of internationality which broadens and enriches the groups of its potential followers from the expertise and the general public, and

the equally strong and decisive penetration of the digital multiplier which revolutionised the impact of Cartoheritage in the domain of GLAM and Society.

GLAM is the acronym for indicating the set of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums

Cartoheritage is producing its proper Ecosystem generally described by its elements, the cartodiversity 2D and 3D assets and the groups of operators dealing with the providing, the growing and the use/reuse of cartodiversity data and meta-data, the providers, the growers and the users. Usually the providers are coming from GLAM, the growers from Research and Technology and the users/reusers from a broad spectrum of the society and the tertiary sector of the economy.

Cartodiversityis the set of manuscript and printed maps -loose and/or bound- books with maps, map atlases, globes and related cartographic representations in 2D and 3D, depicted in a variety of supporting material like e.g. parchment, paper, wood or other writable/engravable media.